Hanukkah tradition: Spreading the light

Starting at sundown tonight, Jewish families will be celebrating Hanukkah with a variety of traditions – gifts, greeting cards, special food, candle lighting and an ancient story of a divine miracle. While the age-old “Festival of Lights” has emerged as a popular observance in the shadow of an ever-more c...

By Lane Lambert

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Lane Lambert

Posted Dec. 1, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 1, 2010 at 1:09 AM

By Lane Lambert

Posted Dec. 1, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 1, 2010 at 1:09 AM

» Social News

Starting at sundown tonight, Jewish families will be celebrating Hanukkah with a variety of traditions – gifts, greeting cards, special food, candle lighting and an ancient story of a divine miracle.

Just don’t call it the “Jewish Christmas.”

While the age-old “Festival of Lights” has emerged as a popular observance in the shadow of an ever-more commercialized Christmas, observant believers like Deborah Milbauer of Milton say there’s not as much of a connection as many non-Jews think.

“It’s not a little Christmas,” the public health consultant, parent and Temple Shalom member said.

Like other Jewish youngsters, Milbauer’s two daughters will help light the family menorah over the next eight days. They’ll get small gifts, and plenty of gelt – the traditional gold-covered chocolate coins of the holiday. But Milbauer will also be reading them the story of the 2nd-century B.C. Maccabean revolt against their Greek rulers, just as she grew up hearing.

Temple Shalom’s Rabbi Alfred Benjamin says that story – with the tale of the oil lamp that stayed lit for eight days – makes Hanukkah different from the typical American shopping-mall Christmas.

“This is not a question of, ‘anything you can do, I can do better,’” the rabbi said, quoting the song from the musical “Annie Get Your Gun.”

Milbauer does fret that Hanukkah is on its way to becoming a marketing season like Christmas, and Brandeis University Jewish history professor Jonathan Sarna says there’s no denying that Hanukkah’s cultural presence has grown in tandem with 20th-century Christmas.

But he and Rabbi Benjamin say the larger trends of Zionism and the post-World War II migration to the suburbs have had a greater impact on Hanukkah’s current popularity.

Rabbi Benjamin lived out the suburban change, as a child of the 1960s in Stamford, Conn. When Jewish families left their close-knit urban neighborhoods, parents made sure their children got gifts and had a menorah to light, “so they wouldn’t feel left out,” the rabbi said.

Rabbi Benjamin recalls one family on his street that put up a “Hanukkah bush” every year, to match the Christmas trees at their neighbors’ homes.

“I don’t know anyone who would do that now,” he said.

Sarna said the Hanukkah revival started generations earlier, amid the Zionist movement of the late 1800s. With its story of political and cultural rebellion, a holiday that historically ranked far below Passover, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah became a festive expression of a growing Jewish self-identity.

Sarna said Hanukkah has also benefited from a corresponding decline in the widespread observance of those high holy days.

“It has become harder for most people to keep up the rituals, such as going to the synagogue and cleaning the house for Passover,” he said. “Hanukkah doesn’t make any of those demands. You light the candles; you sing a song; you give a gift. It’s an easy holiday to explain to your neighbors.”

Page 2 of 2 - Rabbi Shmuel Bronstein of the Quincy-Hingham Chabad said the story of the oil lamp that kept burning is the heart of Hanukkah’s appeal – especially when it comes during the darkening days of winter’s arrival.

“Even more than the victory (of the Maccabees), it’s the miracle of the oil,” Rabbi Bronstein said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do – spread the light.”